Gold Dust Woman

Fleetwood Nicks is one of the most authentic tribute bands out there, performing the timeless music of Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks a lot longer than most. The band’s focus is on capturing the true essence of Fleetwood Mac and Nicks in their prime during the ’70s and ’80s — staying true to the original studio recordings that made Fleetwood Mac and Nicks two of the best-selling and most iconic acts in rock history.
Fleetwood Nicks brings its spot-on recreation of Fleetwood Mac’s legendary sound to the stage with a powerful rock concert, performing hits from Rumours through Fleetwood Mac’s infamous reunion with their Dance Tour live album.
“The Chain,” “Go Your Own Way,” “Gold Dust Woman” and “Dreams,” are just a handful of the classics you’ll hear, as well as concert favorites such as Lindsey Buckingham’s signature encore “I’m So Afraid” and Nicks’ haunting “Landslide.” Brad Torchin pays special tribute to Buckingham, performing his acoustic masterpiece “Big Love,” the show-stopping tune of the Dance Tour.
Because of Nicks’ unique raspy vocals, it goes without saying any tribute worth its salt has to have a vocalist who can capture them — Julie Torchin is that singer who is closer than most to the gypsy enchantress. In addition to Julie and Brad Torchin, the group includes Christie Copeland (lead vocals of Christine McVie); Danny Buss (bass); Dave Davis (drums); Aaron Olson (rhythm guitar & percussion) and Dave Miller (keys, bass, vocals).
Powerful solo hits such as “Edge of Seventeen,” as well as duets “Leather and Lace” and “Stop Draggin My Heart Around,” pay homage to Nicks’ friend and musical collaborator, the late Tom Petty.
This legendary music transports audiences back in time, to when Nicks first stepped on stage apart from Fleetwood Mac to become the goddess of rock for two decades.
Little did she know, but Julie’s future portrayal of Stevie began when both of them called Scottsdale, Ariz., home.
“A long time ago, in my early 20s, I was living in Scottsdale, Arizona, with my sister,” Torchin told the Laughlin entertainer. “Stevie (Nicks) was also living in Scottsdale at the time. It was when MTV was the coolest thing to watch. My sister had this huge foyer with these great acoustics. I remember they would play ‘Gypsy’ a lot, and when it came on I would run to the foyer and sing along. Pretty soon my sister was dragging me to karaoke and showing me off.
“Much later, I was in Chicago when a popular cover band, ARRA, got me up to sing ‘Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around’ for a crowd of thousands. After hearing so many positive responses, I decided to start my own band.
“That was almost 20 years ago and we were both a Heart tribute (as Heart Alive) and a Fleetwood Mac tribute (as Fleetwood Nicks). We were very successful for six years, not only playing the main venues, but opening for many celebrated artists at festivals. Danny Buss, our bassist, and myself, moved out west to Las Vegas so we could play music full time. We put the band together but it wasn’t until a few generations until we found the right players to make it one of the most recognized in the business.
“We have since decided to split the show into two separate tributes. This was because both Fleetwood Mac and Heart have so many huge hits that we could now expand and cover everything people wanted to hear. In each show, we have three hours of hits in our catalog,” she added.
With this talented group of musicians, the challenge wasn’t mastering the music, but mastering their time for gigs.
“Brad, who is our Lindsey Buckingham, was only supposed to be in our Heart tribute,” Torchin said. “But once I heard him sing a Lindsey song, I knew he was the one. He had double the work learning all of Lindsey’s songs and his amazing guitar style.
“I think the biggest challenge is that everyone in our group is extremely talented, which also makes them very popular as musicians for work outside of what we do — therefore it’s sometimes a challenge to get everyone to agree on a date.
“Aaron our drummer has been playing for years in the popular ‘The Fab’ tribute as well as drumming for a Rush tribute ‘Permanent Waves;’ Dave Davis has acoustic and original projects, and this year he landed the part of Barry Gibb in the ‘Australian Bee Gees Show;’ Christie Copeland has played a lead role in the long running Las Vegas musical ‘Marriage Can be Murder;’ keyboardist David Mark Miller has been busy in both the recording studio, as well as opening his own photography studio and he is working on an original jazz album and writing music for radio/tv commercials; bassist Danny Buss has been in the studio completing his original CD and working large production shows inside and out of Vegas. Brad and I released our first alt rock CD “Surrounding Sara” in 2012, and most recently collaborated on my Christian Rock project “Love Survive.”
There’s no denying the appeal of Nicks’ character involves ridiculously cool costumes of vintage lace and scarves, flowing skirts and lace-up boots of the witchy, mystical variety.
“It is a dream come true because everything that Stevie has brought to fashion is definitely the coolest stuff you can wear,” Torchin said. “My closet is a glorious wonderland of hippie/gypsy/goth/renaissance. If I could, I would dress like this every day.”
While the outfits are part of the fun, what’s most important is the music and getting it right.
“First, I think we all love the music and this shows in our performance and the audience picks up on this,” she said. ” We are very honest when we say we ‘rock it like the record.’ We stay true to the original studio recordings and do not hold back on anything.
“I’m not saying we don’t add our own creativity here and there — such as with Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Rhiannon’ — Fleetwood Mac extended it when they did it live, and we do too…but we do our own interpretation. Same with ‘Gold Dust Woman’s’ ending — I’m a harmony junkie and so if I happen to hear harmonies where there are none, I’m gonna run it by Christie and work out something amazing.
“I think Fleetwood Mac would even be impressed and might say, ‘hmmm wish we thought of that!'”
With all of this music at their fingertips, what are the band members’ favorites?
“I think Brad’s favorite is Lindsey’s signature tune ‘I’m So Afraid,’ Christie told me she loves ‘Sara,” which I think is a lot of people’s favorite. I’m not sure about the rest of the guys, but I think they really dig doing ‘Tusk’ because of all the percussion. Aside from ‘The Chain’ that Brad sings lead on, my favorite happens to be a deep track — Stevie Nicks’ ‘Nightbird’ off her Wild Heart album which we don’t always get to do,” Torchin added. “I also love performing ‘Edge of Seventeen’ because it’s a song that I can really belt out. I tend to like the edgier female rock such as Evanescence.”
However there’s one crowd favorite that cannot be denied no matter where they perform.
“It has to be ‘Landslide,'” she said. “You can’t get away without having that song in the set.”
Because Nicks wrote most of Fleetwood Mac’s songs in addition to her own successful solo career, the show wouldn’t be complete without adding those signature songs as well.
“Yes we perform a good handful of her solo hits ‘Edge of Seventeen,’ ‘Talk to Me,’ ‘If Anyone Falls,’ ‘Stand Back,’ and ‘Nightbird,’ she said. “It all depends on how long our show is, how many of these we can squeeze in.”